Video-on-demand (VOD) is an example of one data distribution application in which video programs (movies, etc.) are streamed to remote user sites and certain functions associated with the streaming process are centralized remote from the user sites. For example, one class of such functions are fast-forwarding and rewinding the program at different speeds. To accommodate such functions, VOD servers generally create what are called “trick files” that compress time from the normal speed (1×) presentation program data stream to visually represent the speed of the desired trick, e.g. 8× fast-forwarding. This is done so that when the user is requesting a trick function (fast-forwarding or rewinding), it requires no more bandwidth than the 1× data stream. For example, a 3.75 Mbps 1× data stream would create a 3.75 Mbps 8× trick data stream which would be ⅛th as long in duration. This avoids creating higher loads on the VOD infrastructure and also avoids requiring higher network bandwidth when serving such trick functions since trick speeds are often supported up to 100× or more.
However, when a user switches from watching the video program at normal speed to requesting a trick, for example 8× fast forward, there will be some latency while that segment of the trick is fetched from the VOD servers. In a distributed VOD architecture, there is a storage server that manages the original source content and distributes the content to remotely located streaming servers over a wide-area network. Therefore, when the storage server is called upon to generate data for a trick function, this latency can be significant. The latency delay can be significant enough that a user may perceive it as an unacceptable delay in processing their request. For example, the user presses the Fast-Forward button on his/her remote, and it takes several seconds before the trick function is presented. Thus, there is a need to improve the performance of trick functions in distributed data network.